Calling JAXP XPath extension functions
The JAXP XPath interface includes an interface FunctionResolver
which can be used to
bind a function call appearing in the XPath expression to a user-written Java implementation of the
interface java.xml.xpath.XPathFunction
. The form in which parameters are passed to such a function,
and the form in which it returns its results, are not precisely defined in the JAXP specification, so this
section fills the gap. Note that the calling conventions are likely to differ from those used by other products.
The extension function is called by invoking the method XPathFunction.evaluate()
, which takes a list
of arguments, and returns the function result.
The arguments are therefore supplied as a list. Each item in this list represents one argument. The argument value is represented as follows:
-
if the value of the argument is a singleton item, it will be passed as the "natural Java equivalent" of the item's type. For example, a double will be passed as an instance of
java.lang.Double
, a string as an instance ofjava.lang.String
. An untyped atomic value is treated as a string. Anxs:integer
(even if it belongs to a subtype such asxs:short
) is converted to ajava.lang.BigInteger
. The more specialized XML Schema primitive types such asxs:hexBinary
andxs:duration
are passed in their native Saxon representation (a subclass ofnet.sf.saxon.value.AtomicValue
). A node will be passed as an instance ofnet.sf.saxon.NodeInfo
, unless it wraps a foreign node (e.g. a DOM or JDOM node) in which case the foreign node is passed. -
if the value is a sequence of any length other than one (including zero), then the value that is passed is a List, where each item in the list is converted as described in rule (1).
If the return value conforms to the above conventions, then it will be
accepted. However Saxon will also accept a wide range of other return
values, including of course a List
containing one item.